Farm Alphabet Book

Colin and I have been on our own this week while Jack visits his Grammy and Poppa out of town (he comes home tomorrow!).

We had fun the other night playing his new Super Why! ABC Letter Game - I just used the letter recognition cards since the rest were a bit above his current skill level. Since I can rarely get Colin to sit still to listen to an entire story, I decided to incorporate the Farm Alphabet Book by Jane Miller into the game.

To incorporate the book into the game, whenever Colin would pull a letter card and find the same letter on the board, we would look up that letter in the book and read that page. So if Colin selected a 'b', we found the uppercase 'B' on the game board, then read the 'B' page out of the book. It really worked out well and was fun.

This book was published in 2000 but the photos make it seem much older. There is a page for each letter in the alphabet, complete with a photo and a description. While the book's contents are aimed at young children, there is no sing-songy text or even any rhyming.

That said, Colin seemed to enjoy learning facts about the farm and farm animals. One of his favorite pages was 'I' for Incubator.

He said, "I'm cold, Mama. I need an incubator!". Hearing him say a big word like incubator was entertaining in itself.

He also liked 'S' for Swan. He kept asking my what the baby swans were called. (Everything is "just a baby" around here these days).

What I thought about this book: Overall, I liked it. The photo quality isn't great, but many of the letter words are animals, which is always a big hit in our house. Many of the animal pages talked about the real names for the mama, daddy and baby animal (stallion, mare, foal for example). It was interesting to have Colin argue with me, "it's not a mare, mama, it's a mama horse!". ;-)

What Colin thought about this book: We read it again at bedtime after the game was put away. At the end Colin said, "that was a good story, Mama!". I think it gets his seal of approval. :-)

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Welcome!

I hope my kids' book reviews inspire you to run to your favorite library or bookseller to pick up a new book (or two) today!

My nine year old son Jack and my seven year old son Colin help me review every book, even if it's just asking to read it over and over again or putting it back in the library bag never to be read again. ;) We added a little girl to our family in 2012 and we hope she will also be an enthusiastic reader.